“I think you’d better go home,” he told her.  “You’ll have the stage hands talking in a minute.”

She laughed disagreeably, ignoring his words.  “I watched you write this play!  I have eyes, even if Irving Francis is blind.  It’s time he knew what is going on.”

“There is nothing going on,” Phillips cried, heatedly; but his wife merely shrugged her splendid shoulders and, opening her gold vanity case, gave her face a deft going over with a tiny powder puff.  After a time the man continued:  “I could understand your attitude if you—­cared for me, but some years ago you took pains to undeceive me on that point.”

Leontine’s lip curled, and she made no answer.

“This play is a fine piece of property; it will bring us a great deal of money; it is the thing for which I have worked years.”

“I am going to tell Francis the truth about you and his wife!” she said.

“But there’s nothing to tell,” the man insisted, with an effort to restrain himself.  “Besides, you must know the result if you start a thing like that.  He’ll walk out and take his wife with him.  That would ruin—­”

“Give me her part.”

“I won’t be coerced,” he flared up, angrily.  “You are willing to ruin me, out of pique, I suppose, but I won’t permit it.  This is the biggest thing I ever did, or ever will do, perhaps; it means honor and recognition, and—­you’re selfish enough to spoil it all.  I’ve never spoken to Norma Berwynd in any way to which her husband or you could object.  Therefore I resent your attitude.”

“My attitude!  I’m your wife.”

He took a turn across the stage, followed by her eyes.  Pausing before her at length, he said, quietly:  “I’ve asked you to go home and now I insist upon it.  If you are here when I return I shall dismiss the rehearsal.  I refuse to allow our domestic relations to interfere with my business.”  He strode out to the front of the house and then paced the dark foyer, striving to master his emotions.  A moment later he saw his wife leave the stage and assumed that she had obeyed his admonitions and gone home.

The property-man appeared with an armful of draperies and mechanical appliances, interrupting his whistling long enough to call out.

“Here’s the new hangings, Mr. Phillips, and the Oriental rugs.  I’ve got the dagger, too.”  He held a gleaming object on high.  “Believe me, it’s some Davy Crockett.  There’s a newspaper guy out back and he wants your ideas on the American drama.  I told him they were great.  Will you see him?”

“Not now.  Tell him to come back later.”

“Say!  That John Danton is some character.  Why don’t you let him have the gal?”

“Because—­well, because it doesn’t happen in real life, and I’ve tried to make this play real, more than anything else.”

When Norma Berwynd and her husband arrived Phillips had completely regained his composure, and he greeted them cordially.  The woman seemed awed, half-frightened, by her sudden rise to fame.  She seemed to be walking in a dream, and a great wonder dwelt in her eyes.  As for Francis, he returned the author’s greeting curtly, making it plain that he was in no agreeable temper.